US equity markets turned negative overnight, still awash with fears over the growing global tariff war and awaiting important Central Bank Interest Rate Decisions (IRD’s). President Trump spoke with President Putin overnight, for more than an hour and a half, searching for a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war. Progress was made but the world awaits any agreement. The German Parliament voted to abandon the ‘debt brake’, that has held the fiscal sanity of the Country together and have ‘greenlighted massive deficit and debt-fuelled war expenditure. This will also be extended to deficit spending on green alarmism and expansion of Government. This is one of the final nails in the coffin, of the once ‘engine room of Europe’, which is currently and speedily de-industrialising. All eyes turn to Central Banks, headed by the Fed, with expectations low of any rate cuts, despite the talk of recession. The EUR managed to consolidate above 1.0900, while the GBP looked to regain 1.3000.
The NZD looks to hold 0.5800, boosted by trade talks with India, while the AUD drifted back to trade around 0.6350. The NZ PM has been in India finalising a ‘FTA’, playing dress-up with ‘any and all’ in native costumes. Shades of Canadian PM Trudeau. The FTA is a boost to NZ in the short term, but these FTA’s are rarely free, and certainly not fair. Time will tell. Market attention will be firmly on Central Banks over the next couple of days.
